


Shadows in the Briar

by starbirdrampant (ineasako22)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Force-Sensitive Handmaidens, Force-Sensitive Padmé Amidala, Naboo Royal Handmaidens, Persephone/Hades mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 05:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13357683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineasako22/pseuds/starbirdrampant
Summary: A Persephone/Hades remix, with accompanying AU.





	Shadows in the Briar

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks be to my ever patient beta imaginary_golux.

_She remembers the first time she saw the sky, as drops of blue between a ceiling of sun-lit leaves, and her mother’s quiet chivvying to return to the cool shadows under the spreading trees._

_“You must be careful, my Koré,” her mother says. “I would not lose you for all the green and growing things of the world.”_

Padmé became a Princess of Theed at the age of ten, after a pair of solemn government officials collected her from her parents’ country home and took her to the Palace Complex in the heart of the city, just above the waterfalls. She missed her parents, certainly, but she wasn’t lonely there, not with six other girls all her own age to play and learn with.

And learn she did. Every subject her tutors placed before her she devoured with a voracious appetite, learning math, history, philosophy, etiquette, and politics as though she was born to know them. Her friends, no… her _sisters_ – for they are her sisters, if not by blood – all learned as rapidly as she, until they’re conversing about topics and equations that adults three times their age would shake their head to hear. It was a good life, if sheltered, but though all seven girls enjoyed their time in the palace, and kept in varyingly close contact with their families, there was little to no explanation as to what they would do when they grew older.

It wasn’t until she turned fifteen, when she reached through the Force into the planet below and felt every man, woman, child, beast, and plant against her skin like the gentle caress of a spring rain, that she began to understand why.

Their training changed then, for her and her sisters both, and they focused now on the push and pull of the seasons, on calling rain and drying the earth, on growing new life and returning the old to the bones of the world.

By the time she was eighteen, Padmé knew she would be Queen of Naboo and that her sisters would not, though they would stay to help her settle the earth and call the rain, and to guard and to hide her in war, should the need arise. Still, with all her training, and even with the heartbeat of the planet rolling beneath her feet, Padmé could find nothing more of the outside world than the old books in the Palace library or the faint glimpses of the city that could barely be found from the windows of the highest domes of the palace.

It wasn’t her place to worry about the people, her tutors said – though she distinctly remembered lessons on governance when she was younger – her duty was to the land. Her sisters had more freedom, but even they only had rumors and half-true faery tales about a people they barely remembered, and nothing at all about the galactic republic beyond.

_The first time she hears her mother angry is when her father-king comes to visit, speaking to her mother of “private business, Little Leaf, run along now,” and the resulting argument nearly shakes the trees of her mother’s bower to the ground. She is as green and lithe as a young willow sapling, and the trees don’t murmur at all when she inches closer to hear what could put the thunder in her father’s tone and the steel in her mother’s._

_“Koré is old enough, Demeter,” her father’s voice rumbles. “You must begin to think on whom she will marry.”_

_“You may not ask me to do this,” her mother snaps, as withered leaves crumble to the ground. “Not even you.”_

_“She has reached her womanhood. She_ will _marry.”_

_“There are none alive or dead who deserve her.” There is grief in her mother’s voice, though she isn’t sure why, and her father-king reaches for her mother even as her mother shies away._

_“It is the way of things, my dear,” he said, not unkindly. But her mother’s shoulders are still bowed, and the trees around her have begun to turn brown and cold, cold,_ cold _. “Take heart in the knowledge that I love our daughter as well. I would not see her unhappy.”_

_“No, but you would see her gone from me, to be broken or stifled, and that means much the same.”_

There were rumors sometimes, whispers from the servants in the back hallways, of a shadow sweeping the galaxy, burning and bombing all in its path. But the rumors are small things, quickly stifled, and at twenty-two, with her coronation looming, Padmé found herself putting them quickly aside for more… important things.

“I’m sorry,” she said, twisting her fingers together inside the sleeves of her dressing gown while Sabé braided her hair into the ornate knot that would hold her headdress of the day. “You expect me to do what?”

“To marry, your Highness.” Captain Panaka was apologetic, his mouth turned into the frown that she normally only saw after an unauthorized night-time jaunt to the gardens. “It’s expected that the Queen shall marry and produce children that may then go on to become future Queens. So the law was ordained that _to_ be Queen, the chosen Princess would be married before she took the crown.”

“Which ambitious old Advisor with an unmarried son ordained that, I wonder?” Sabé muttered, and stabbed Padmé’s hair hard enough that she had to fight back a wince, though she understood the anger.

“Am I to assume that the Council has such a match in mind?” Padmé replied sharply, perhaps too sharply, judging by the lines that tightened around Panaka’s eyes.

“There are several, your Highness, for you to choose before your coronation.”

At the sides of the room Rabé and Eirtaé shift slightly, the movement covered by the long flowing handmaiden robes they wore. To anyone else, they would be as stone, but to Padmé, who’d been trained as they were… Anger churned thick and cloying her dressing room, until Padmé wondered how blind the Advisory council had to be in the Force to miss it.

“Only a month,” she remarked, her voice cool and lilting like a bird. “How generous.”

This time Captain Panaka did wince, and Padmé felt the slightest twinge of sympathy. It wasn’t his fault that the Council chose him to be the bearer of both good news and bad, or that his jurisdiction ended wherever she was not.

“I’ll prepare to be introduced then,” she told him, even if she added ‘ _like a broodmare_ ’ in the privacy of her own head. She turned her head to let Sabé put the final pins in place. “Thank you, Captain, I will see you at lessons.”

Thus dismissed, he backed out of the room, and Padmé saw his shoulders drop in relief just before the door slid shut.

“Old goats,” Yané spat, coming out of the closet with the first of Padmé’s over-robes. “Do you think they want to check your teeth and ankles too?”

“Maybe they’ll be friendly? The ones you have to pick, I mean,” Saché said, though the downturn of her voice showed how little hope she had of it.

Padmé huffed a breath, screwing up her face just in time for Sabé to slap a blotch of white face-paint on her cheek.

“Hold still,” Sabé warned, and Padmé smoothed her face to its habitual stillness, taking some small comfort in the soothing strokes of the brush.

“Usual signal then?” Sabé asked Padmé in an undertone, her brown eyes dark with worry. “If they prove too goatish, I mean?”

Padmé’s fingers flickered into the hand signs they’d made up as children, ‘ _I could always faint._ ’

Rabé laughed. “That would be one way to end an audience, though they might put you on “rejuvenating elixirs” for a while.”

‘ _I suppose they’d get suspicious if another batch of plants died like last time_.’

“Only just slightly,” said Eirtaé, grinning. Then her smile faded. “Seriously, Padmé, when is the time? When are we going to _really_ find out what the Advisory Council is up to? I’ve been reading, the whole Princess thing and being taken from our homes is normal, but… we should have been out in the city by now, seeing our _people_.” Her lips twisted. “Instead the most important decision we’re having is how to dress you up for advantage to get _married_.”

“Soon,” Padmé promised, taking the brush from Sabé to put the Scar of Remembrance on her lip and the beauty marks on her cheeks. The face that looked back at her from the mirror was beautiful and serene, and for just a moment, Padmé felt like snarling, like turning the white and red paint into white teeth and blood-red lips. Instead she smoothed her expression even further and rose from the stool, holding out her arms for her sisters to help belt her over-robes on over her shift. “Even the Council will make a mistake eventually.”

“And we’ll get them when they do,” Sabé said, nodding, and the rest of the girls echoed her.

_Men start coming to her mother’s lands: tall men, short men, young and old men. Her mother turns them all away, and though her father-king is frustrated, and his thunder rumbles darkly after every suitor that leaves without seeing her, her mother continues._

_But Koré sees them._

_None of them particularly catch her eye, too strange in her sight to call to her anywhere her cousins say they should. One particular suitor tries to argue with her mother before he leaves, and he leaves with one side of his face permanently aged, and a limp that she knows won’t go away._

_But still, she sees none that she wants, none that would make her happy to leave, and for a moment, she thinks that her mother may be right. She’s not one for the open world, she should stay sheltered and safe and forever-young under the heavy branches of fruit trees…_

_One suitor brings a gift, a painting of a land she’s never seen, and though her mother turns him away as she had all the others, Koré can’t help but pull the painting out while her mother sleeps and traces the lines of unknown mountains and sharp jagged sea-cliffs. The land in the painting is harsh and unyielding, at least until she spots the tiny white flowers that cling to the side of the cliffs, and the sharp, green trees on the slopes of the mountains. They’re so unlike her mother’s lush groves that she almost puts down the painting right then and runs to where the suitor had come from, but of course he’s three weeks gone, and any chance of something different has gone with him._

_She stops looking at the suitors then, stops looking for their gifts that they sometimes bring, and insteads takes to wandering the edges of her mother’s lands. She never goes so far as to leave, but the blue of the sky is stronger there, and more prevalent, and the plants that grow there are more willing to listen to her than her mother._

_It helps, for a time._

_The time stops one morning when she’s wandering a grove that’s been struggling lately. The trees are tired but insistent on bearing fruit, and won’t listen to her suggestions to rest no matter how much will she puts behind them._

_Thunder that isn’t her father’s rumbles through the earth, leaving her too stunned to hide when a black chariot leaps into the air from a hole in the ground, trailing darkness beneath its wheels. Its horses are fearsome, larger than any she’s ever seen, and they look as though one puff of breeze would set them aflame._

_But the chariot’s driver… he is tall, though his face is hidden but for golden eyes as fiery as his horses. For a long moment, their gazes meet, and Koré is struck dumb with fear and something like admiration, at least until she sees a deer leaping in front of the chariot and reaches out to stop it like her actions would actually make a difference._

_They don’t of course, but_ his _do._

_Quick as thought, the chariot swerves, the horses dancing in their harnesses enough to nearly tip the chariot over. Except it settles back on its wheels and the deer bounds away, eyes white with fear but entirely unharmed._

_Koré turns back to the man in the chariot, but he only nods to her once, politely, before turning his horses upward and vanishing into the blue-sapphire sky._

The invasion happened before lunch. 

Padmé’s latest suitor – a boy barely eighteen, who looked so nervous he nearly dropped his teacup, his plate, and his silverware – was the one who noticed first. He stammered to a halt in the middle of a story about his father’s anooba hounds and looked out the large, picture windows with the most horrified face Padmé’s ever seen on anyone. 

Propriety dictated that she not turn around, that she send one of her sisters to investigate, but then a shadow fell across the room, like sundown come early, and Padmé rose and turned to face the window.

There was a warship hanging over Theed, larger than any ship she knows of. Its stark, triangular shape was jarring to her eyes, so used to Naboo curves, but it hung over the city like a dagger, spewing forth troop transports and starfighters like a corpse divulging flies.

There was no cannon fire, not yet anyways, and Padmé spared a breath of prayer for her people, that they would surrender peacefully and not fight, though she knew for some that being prisoners of war was worse. Then her mind was racing through the possibilities, wondering if war was truly feasible – Naboo hadn’t fought a war in over a thousand years – or if surrender would keep them safer, except they’d likely be churned into a grinder to feed the war machine that was, even now, looming over their doorstep.

She was so concentrated on plans of response that she almost didn’t realize her suitor had fled, and that _no one_ had returned in his place.

“Sabé?” She turned to her friend. “What is the Council saying?”

Sabé was by the door, frowning at the console that was both comms and door controls alike. “They’re saying nothing. Or I’m getting nothing.” She glanced back at Padmé. “We’re locked out.”

“They should have come to us immediately,” Eirtaé muttered. “It’s an invasion. You’re ostensibly the next _Queen_. You should be the one to make decisions on what’s happening.”

Padmé frowned, but did not gainsay her. Any kind of “should” had started dying a slow painful death years ago. This invasion may just be what finally put it in its tomb. “Sabé,” she asked, “can you get that door open?”

Sabé grinned, though there was no kindness in it. “They really ought to be careful what they teach us these days,” she remarked conversationally as the doors slid open, surprising the guards that stood with their backs to them.

“Y- your Highness,” one guard stammered. “I’m afraid you must stay here, for your own protection.”

Padmé raised a delicately manicured brow, conscious of how her face-paint stretched at the motion. “I am headed to the Council’s ready room, Lieutenant. You may either stand aside or–”

“My lady, please,” came the voice of one of the Advisory Council members, rushing up the hallway as fast as his age and draping robes would allow him. “You must stay here, where it’s safe. I insist!”

Behind her, Rabé cursed violently under her breath, starting first with Old Naboo and ending with more than a few pithy Huttese curses, but Padmé only folded her hands into her sleeves, ignoring the itch in her fingers that urged her to toss the Council member slippers over nose down the corridor.

“And how am I to ascertain the situation from here, Counselor, if I do not have access to the eyes and ears of Theed?”

The Counselor – not one Padmé or the others dealt with on a regular basis – smiled lightly, and blotted at a faint sheen of sweat on his brow. “You are the most important thing to your people, my lady. I beg of you, you must stay–”

“Your Highness,” Rabé snapped, all hot steel covered in velvet. “You will refer to the Princess Amidala as your Highness or you may refer to her not at all, Counselor.”

Oddly, and to Padmé and the others’ unease, Rabé’s outburst steadied the man. “Thank you for your input, Handmaiden, but her royal highness must stay here. The Advisory Council is handling the matter.”

And with that, though Rabé and Yané surged forward to protest, the Councilor closed the door, and the hollow thunk of the locking mechanism echoed through the room like the quiet tap of a chisel on a sarcophagus.

The uproar that followed clattered against the walls like the smashing of fine china, but Padmé turned to the window, smoothing down the anger that heated in her chest and sent a flush racing along her painted cheeks. Eventually Sabé confirmed that the door was locked, for good this time, though she’d keep working on cracking the code – they’d tried before, but the Advisory Council had more resources than a few royal handmaidens, even if they _were_ all Princesses of Theed.

So Padmé watched her city fall. She watched the plumes of smoke begin to rise over the river and the starfighters – boxy and harsh – swoop over Theed like vultures. And as the sun began to set golden-red on her shoulders and sleeves, she watched lines upon lines of white-armored troopers march down the Palace way, straight towards _her_.

 _The display_ is _impressive_ , she admitted to herself, watching as the battalions of troopers grew larger and larger, interspersed with tanks and rolling cannons, all following one hooded and cloaked figure who stalked at the front of the war machine with vicious grace. She wasn’t sure if the anger that still seethed and churned behind her teeth was for this or for the Council. _Though it can be for both_ , she thought. _I wonder if they’ll even let me out of this room before they have us killed._

Sabé’s shout of triumph was nearly eclipsed by the welcome sound of the door sliding open, but when Padmé turned to find the apologetic face of Captain Panaka, she wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or scream. So she did neither, instead flicking hand signs at her sisters to _follow, quickly_ and strode out of the room, leaving Captain Panaka to scramble to keep up.

“What is the situation, Captain?” 

Was that her voice? That cold block of ice that should have frozen the breath in her lungs?

“The Advisory Council has communed on the front steps of the palace to receive the Empire’s terms, your Highness. It was argued that you should be there.”

 _Argued by whom_ , she wondered, the ripples of her sisters’ anger still splashing against her senses. But they fell easily into formation behind her, pulling their hoods up over their faces and sinking into the Force – as was their wont – until even the barest ripple of their Force presences was little more than a whisper on the wind. 

_I guess even some training is hard to break,_ Padmé thought ruefully. _For all that we try._

Captain Panaka directed them down a corridor they’d never used before, though Padmé had lost track of the times she’d stared longingly down its silvered length. At the far end, pale wooden doors, ornate carved and gilded, stretched from floor to ceiling. Beyond, Padmé knew, was the Palace entrance, open only on rare occasions. She’d expected her coronation to be the first time she walked through those doors.

Instead, it would be for her abdication.

The Advisory Council was clustered at the top of the steps, looking like selka birds with their iridescent feathers, so varied were the robes and chains of state. Halfway to the stairs, Panaka placed a hand lightly in front of Padmé – though of course he never touched her – in an effort to bid her to stop. She did not, and his hand was hastily removed before she could run into it.

Striding forward, Padmé made for the top step, her sisters fanning out beside her. The Councilors – deep in nervous discussion – scattered like songbirds before a tooka-cat at her approach, and her sisters did the rest, situating themselves so that they stood as a barrier, leaving the Councilors in disparate groups on either side of Padmé’s position.

Maybe it was petty, but Padmé could feel the fierce satisfaction rising from Rabé and Yané, and Eirtaé’s almost effervescent glee as the Counselors sputtered their indignation. But the mood faded as the rattling strike of boots meeting pavement bounced against the Palace doors like pebbles against ice, and even the Counselors’ aggrieved mutterings died a whispering death against the oncoming Imperial might.

The main palace way was cleared, making way for the troops that marched forward like a swelling tide. From this angle, Padmé could actually _see_ the man leading them, or at least, she could see that his cloak wasn’t just black, it _exuded_ darkness like a shroud, broken only by the red-gold gleam of his eyes, visible even from five hundred meters away. Even the officers that marched on either side of him seemed to shy away, leaving an empty, gaping hole filled only by the cloud of darkness shaped like a man, whose bootsteps rattled even the Force itself.

Padmé could feel her sisters shifting, and she threw as much calm as she could manage into their link until their misgivings quieted, leaving only the impression of a calm, shallow pond. The Counselors, however, were not so circumspect.

“Ancestors help us,” one said as the troops marched ever closer. “The Emperor sent Lord Vader. He sent his _Fist_.”

The mutterings that followed were fearful, and Padmé caught snatches of whispered rumors from Councilors and palace staff alike, even if the latter shrank back against the shadow of the doors the longer they waited.

Then, a flash of color against the white armored wave of troopers. A child darted out in front of the oncoming tide – to the sound of their mother’s scream – and Padmé’s breath caught in her chest, fear clenching her fingers until her nails dug into the meat of her hand.

The troops kept marching, far enough behind the officers that the child could have ran across the entirety of the palace way and not inhibit them. But Padmé could see the officers’ heads turn, and follow the child’s progress towards a small lump on the ground – likely a doll or toy of some kind – and though she could not see their faces, the sadistic greed for pain rose from them like a mist, until Padmé nearly choked on the vomit that surged in her throat.

One officer, the one closest to the child, removed a _shock prod_ from their belt and raised it high. Sabé’s hand was tight in the back of Padmé’s gown, preventing her movement, preventing _anything_ – 

The prod came down, crackling bright in the evening sun, and Padmé braced herself for the scream, for the tiny body to crumple on the stones, to be trod under so many uncaring feet. 

Except…

The shock prod froze mere inches from the child’s face, then lifted and… _oh_.

Darkness seemed to reach from the hooded man – Lord Vader – to the officer. Then with a snap, audible even at their distance, Padmé watched as the officer was snatched off his feet and sent tumbling through the air to crash against the wall of a nearby building, where he slid to the ground in a limp pile of uniform and blood.

The troops stopped.

Vader abruptly strode towards the child, but paused by the toy before lifting it with the Force and depositing it neatly at the child’s feet. The very air of the city seemed to hold its breath, but after a faltering glance at the darkness under the hood, the child snatched the toy from the stones and ran back the way they came, still entirely unharmed.

Padmé let out the breath she was holding, and heard her sisters do the same. Without a word, Vader returned to his position, though the empty hole in the formation where the now-deceased officer had marched seemed to gape like a missing tooth.

Fear spiked sharply behind Padmé, from Councilors and Palace staff alike, but she found herself staring hard at the cloud of darkness shaped like a man. If she looked hard enough, it was almost as though she could see his face…

The absence of the sound of marching shivered against her senses, and Padmé blinked to see the officers of the invading army standing before the steps of the palace – though she noted that they didn’t quite stand in front of their Emperor’s erstwhile Fist. One stepped forward, and he looked as though his fervor had hollowed him out, leaving behind a sepulchral appearance and the light of fanaticism in his eyes.

“Princess Amidala,” he said. “As you’ve no doubt noticed, your city has fallen, your forces are routed, and your citizens, even now, stand helpless under our weapons. I and… Lord Vader –” here his mouth twisted, and he made an aborted movement behind and to the left – “claim your planet for the Galactic Empire.” A thin smile smoothed his lips back to invisibility. “Will you surrender?” he crooned.

Surrender? How could she _not_ surrender? The pain and terror of her people rose up around her in a choking flood, until tears threatened the painstakingly applied face-paint. But though she may never have been Queen, she remembered her histories. She remembered what war did to the innocent.

Padmé inhaled to speak, but Governor Akadus – the head of the Advisory Council – beat her to it.

“I’m certain a mutually beneficial arrangement can be made, officer…”

The Imperial fanatic smiled. “Tarkin. General Tarkin.” His eyes glittered as they watched Padmé. “I’m so glad you could be made to see reason, your Highness. I look forward to working with you.”

_The next time the chariot returns, she is ready. She has run until her legs were too sore to move, and jumped until she could reach the lowest branches of the tallest tree even her mother can grow. The thunder that isn’t her father’s rumbles through the land and a cold breeze whips the nearby trees into a frenzy, and Koré is running almost before the chariot bounds into the light of day._

_It’s a surprisingly easy thing to do, she realizes once she’s landed in the chariot and wrapped her long, slender fingers around the railing like grasping roots around a rock. Hades – for he is Hades, she knows – looks at her in bemusement, and a little bit of wonder, but does not stop his chariot nor removes her from it. Instead the embered horses reach their hooves towards the sky and the chariot races upwards to the stars, leaving her mother’s bower behind._

_The race is_ beautiful _, and she laughs in delight as the chariot weaves between stars and sky, leaving the whole world spread out like a tapestry far, far below. And then the horses angle downwards, and Koré tightens her fingers on the chariot’s railing and grins, fierce as a hunting hawk, as they hurtle towards the ground and under, into the darkness of the Underworld._

_There, Hades offers her food and drink, pale and strange to her sunlit eyes. But the food is subtle and alien to her tongue, flavors she’s never had bursting inside her mouth like the stars they’d passed on their ride, and Koré smiles at him, bright as the sun._

_“I can stay?” she asks without words, and Hades nods, a sudden grief fading from his eyes._

_Her heart is lighter than it has been in years._

The mood in her quarters that night tasted like sharp breath of air before a storm, like a lightning strike on the horizon, and Padmé, freed now from the trappings of her position, watched as her sisters paced the tower sitting room, their moods churning like deep water over rocks.

“You know what the Council will do!” Rabé was yelling. “You know that the Council will turn over Naboo as soon as they can find some advantage in it. So what are we waiting for?”

“It’s not that simple,” Yané snapped. “There are thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of troops out there. How are we supposed to fight that many?”

“We can’t fight _all_ of them.” Saché said, her fingers twisting in her nervousness. “We’re not trained for _combat_ , just to protect Padmé.” 

“No one’s saying we fight the entire Empire,” Eirtaé said. “But I agree with Rabé, we can’t just do nothing.”

“A resistance movement,” Rabé said, her eyes alight with possibility. “If we could resist the Imperial occupation, we–”

Sabé sighed. “A resistance movement only works if the people of Naboo are willing to fight. We’re not warriors, Rabé, they may not _want_ to fight.”

“We can’t just sit by and do nothing!”

“We’re not,” Padmé said at last, rising from her usual chair by the window. “We’re not going to sit by and do nothing, _and_ –” here she raised her hand – “we’re not going to force Naboo to fight. Sabé’s right, any resistance will be met with force.”

Six pairs of eyes focused on her.

“So what do we do?” Eirtaé asked.

Padmé managed a light smile. “Something neither the Empire nor the Council will expect.”

There’s a route that her sisters had taken many times, though Padmé never had, mainly because the security for the future Queen of Naboo was much higher than on any of her handmaidens. It was a cold and cruel understanding, but every one of them knew that they were expendable, and Padmé was not.

So it was Sabé who guided her into the secret passage just by the main door to the Royal Apartments, and it was Sabé who showed her how to move quickly and silently past the guards in the escape tunnels to get to the exit by the river.

It was Sabé who stunned the guards to the Royal hangar and pressed a chip filled with Imperial passcodes into Padmé’s palm before pointing to a nearby shuttle-cab, eerily similar to the one they’d all ridden in so long ago in their first trip to the Palace.

“Use the passcodes on that chip.” Sabé told her. “I lifted them from that Imperial dataport we passed. They’ll get you onto the ship and should get you past any security check-ins, though obviously you won’t be able to hide what you look like, so look for the ones that are passcode only.”

Padmé nodded and grinned at her sister. “Who was it that received top marks in stealth for three years running?”

Sabé grinned back. “Me, but I’ll admit you came in a close second.” Then her expression sobered. “Be careful, Padmé. We can’t lose you.”

Padmé folded Sabé into her embrace, squeezing lightly. “I’ll come back. I promise. We need to test those stealth scores again.”

Then she stepped back, folded the Force around her until even the physical world looked as though she was watching through a watery veil, and slipped into the shuttle-cab. The trip was short, the passcodes that Sabé acquired let Padmé through every checkpoint and security confirmation that even looked in her direction. Before even an hour had passed, Padmé was releasing the mounts of the grate on a ventilation shaft, and wriggling her way in, using the Force to pull the grate up behind her. She wouldn’t be able to move quickly in the ventilation shafts, but once she got closer to her destination, she might not need to. After the… display earlier in the evening, the corridors were likely to be empty.

She half expected the door to Lord Vader’s quarters to ooze forth darkness, to set her skin crawling as she punched in the final passcode. But it was just a door, cool to the touch, that slid to the side, revealing an antechamber that was jarring in its starkness. But beyond…

The door on the other side of the antechamber was slightly ajar, and a ruddy light spilled from it. Except it wasn’t the ruddiness of blood, but candlelight, and though the Force shifted uneasily to Padmé’s senses, it seemed less afraid and more… eager. Less Dark and more… balanced.

A young man was hunched over a workbench, his sandy blond hair falling gracelessly over one eyebrow, to be swiped at by an irritated but unfocused hand. Tiny sparks came off a soldering tool to bounce harmlessly off a durasteel prosthetic hand before drifting to the table and fading into obscurity. 

As Padmé watched in astonishment, the young man jabbed at whatever he was soldering with the tool, muttered imprecations under his breath, and held his project up to the light.

“What do you think, Artoo? Think the Emperor will be able to notice _this_ in that fancy chair of his?”

An astromech, sat off to the side in idle mode, burbled contentedly, startling Padmé just enough that her knee hit a low table and rattled the glasses that littered its surface. The young man whirled around, revealing a handsome face with a few nicks and scars – one that neatly bisected his left eyebrow and narrowly missed the eye – and tired, but wary blue eyes. Blue eyes that widened as they took in Padmé’s burgundy velvet skirts.

“You’re not an Imperial,” he said, setting what looked like a hilt without a blade back on his workbench. He frowned, and Padmé slammed down her shields as the pressure of his attention in the Force abruptly increased. 

She was okay, she’d _trained_ for this, trained to stay hidden, and safe, and–

“Hey, it’s alright, I’m not going to hurt you.”

His voice was modulated with… something that Padmé couldn’t place, but the words were genuine, so she opened her eyes – she didn’t even realize she’d closed them – and regarded him steadily.

Then the radio crackled. 

“ _Lord Vader, General Tarkin requests your presence tomorrow at the Palace.”_

The man’s – _Lord Vader’s_ – mouth twisted, but instead of looking like the Emperor’s Fist, he only looked like Yané when faced with river-wort tea, and Padmé had to stifle a laugh.

Vader’s voice, when he answered, was deep and laden with enough Force suggested terror to turn Padmé’s legs to jelly, but his eyes didn’t turn from blue to gold, instead they stayed tired… and lonely.

“Understood,” he told the radio officer, and elsewhere on the ship, Padmé felt a surge of fear that rippled towards her in the Force, washing over her like a stinking wave of murky bog water.

Then Vader glanced towards her with the grief-stricken expression she’d ever seen on anyone her age and settled awkwardly on the edge of his work table.

“Look,” he began. “I’m not sure how you got in here, which, is really impressive, actually. And I’m not going to turn you in to General _Tarkin_ –” that name he spat, Padmé noted – “but you’re probably not going to be safe here… whoever you are.”

“My name is Princess Amidala of Naboo,” Padmé told him, and suppressed a surge of satisfaction as his eyes widened in surprise. “And I am here to negotiate my planet’s surrender.”

Vader’s voice was guarded. “Why are you telling me this?”

Padmé’s mouth twisted before she could smooth it away. “The Advisory Council thinks I’m just a girl, good only for keeping the land fertile, but I will be a queen, and I know men grasping for power when I see them.”

“You think _I_ will treat you better?” Vader asked, his eyes wide with either shock or admiration, she couldn’t tell.

“I think you will give me a yes or no answer without calling me a child and trying to enslave my people for your own monetary gain.”

Vader shifted. “You know who I am. You know what you risk by coming here.”

Padmé lifted her chin. “My life has been at risk since I was chosen to be Queen, and if you kill me, then you will create a martyr which would make Naboo the worst thorn in your side that your Empire has ever seen. We are a peaceful people, Lord Vader, but that does not mean we will lay down quietly in the face of enslavement.”

“No.” Vader smiled. “I suppose not.” Then his smile faded.

“Look,” he said. “I’d love to help, really, I would. I mean you’re…” his metal hand twitched in her direction. “You’re… really nice, I’m pretty sure, but you’re underestimating the amount of control I have over this situation.” His mouth twisted, but it was self-revulsion and hatred, rather than reluctance, that Padmé saw. “I can’t tell Tarkin to leave your planet alone. I can’t reduce the number of casualties or give you information to start a rebellion. 

“I’m only the Emperor’s Fist,” he spat. “His weapon, to both frighten and punish planets for daring to stand against him. I’m not the only such weapon he has, only the strongest.” Here he leaned forward. “I might, _might_ , be able to delay Tarkin for a small amount of time, long enough for you to leave the system, but I can’t prevent your Council from making any kind of agreements with him regarding your planet or your people. I’m sorry.”

 _He means it_ , Padmé realized. _He means every word._

She wasn’t sure which was stranger, that he meant every word he’d just said, or that for all his Force signature held more than a touch of Dark, he still blazed like a sun to her senses, warm just before the point of burning.

“...what if I married you?” she asked.

Vader sputtered. “ _What?_ ”

“What if I married you?”

“You cannot be serious, you–” He scrubbed at his face. “ _E chu ta_ , you _know_ what I am!”

Padmé smiled bemusedly, she’d heard Rabé use that curse word before. “Are you not allowed to marry?”

“No, I–” He paused, his thoughts turning inward, and Padmé let herself unabashedly admire his face, though only for a moment. “It would be too dangerous for you,” he told her, his expression _apologetic_ for some reason. “The Emperor is not kind, and does not share well.”

“Then you will tell him that Naboo is both my bride price and my dowry, and that _you_ are what will keep me and my people from becoming a thorn in the Emperor’s side.”

He gaped at her, but something in her face must have convinced him, because he suddenly laughed like he’d been reminded what it was to be happy, before turning to her with a boyish grin that took years off his face and nearly removed the shadows in his eyes.

“Very well then, your Highness. Who am I to refuse a Queen?”

_Hades leads her throughout his kingdom, showing more wonders than she’s ever dared to dream about in all her wanderings of her mother’s lands. He shows her plants that require no sunlight and flowers that give of light of their own, translucent fruits sweeter than any her mother ever grew and plants that look so alien and beautiful that any attempt she made at growing plants in the past pale by comparison._

_If he were anyone else… but there is no competition in Hades’ eyes, no wish to show her how lacking her life has been. Instead there’s only the wonder of beauties shared, and the happiness of a lonely man given friendship, and, quite possibly, love._

_She_ does _love him, she decides, with a flush of warmth that leaves her glowing for days. She is growing here, flowering in ways her mother never thought to show her. Even the dead, so pale and wan, smile as brightly as they are able at her passing, and her heart lifts to bring joy to those who felt as though they may never have it again._

_It’s not all flowers and gardens. Indeed, Hades is often busy with ruling his kingdom, and often goes days without having much time at all to spend in her company._

_So she spends it in his, in the courts of his rule, regarding spirits and their actions in life, and murmuring quietly into his ear what she thinks their punishments should be. Judging by the admiring glances he throws at her sometimes, she proves to be an even harder taskmaster than he is._

_She nearly tells him one evening, about why she is glowing so brightly all the time, when she hears the flap of one of her father-king’s messengers, and her glow fades until she’s only little Koré again._

_The messenger is Hermes, her cousin, and he tells of a world that stricken with famine and death, of wars that are fought over the barest morsel of food, of the sickness that comes when there is not enough to eat._

_“Won’t you come home, little Koré,” he says, “and convince your mother to return the life to the world? Zeus demands it.”_

_It is a different glow that sparks in her chest then, and even Hades must take a step back at the sheer brightness of it._

_“I will not go back,” she says, and the words taste right in her mouth. “I am happy here, I belong_ here _, and nothing my mother or our father-king says will change my mind.”_

_Hermes looks suitably surprised, but still unconvinced, so she reaches over and grabs Hades’ hand._

_“I love him,” she says, daring her cousin to disagree. “I love him, and I would stay with him. Tell Zeus if he wants me to marry, he must settle for whom_ I _pick.”_

If smuggling herself into an Imperial warship was easy, then smuggling Vader back into the Palace was laughable. Even with the sheer force of personality that Padmé knew he possessed, Vader slid easily into her shadow and her footsteps with barely a whisper, and tailed her closely all the way to the secret entrance of the Royal apartments.

He looked slightly alarmed at the stares of her sisters, but Padmé quickly explained her plan – like she hadn’t done before she left – and watched as the hard and angry glares are replaced with gleeful smiles, though Sabé’s was faded with doubt.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked.

Padmé nodded. “I’m sure.” She huffed. “I’d rather have him than any of the options the Council suggested anyways. _He_ at least is kind.”

Sabé snorted. “Kind? Really?”

“He didn’t hurt that child,” Padmé reminded her. “He could have. That officer would have. But _Vader_ didn’t. A man nicknamed ‘The Emperor’s Fist’ and he wouldn’t let anyone hurt a child.”

Sabé glanced in Vader’s direction, her lips thinning as he smiled widely at Saché’s showing of the latest hacking project she’d been working on. “I suppose you’re right. At least they can’t argue about his Force sensitivity.”

Padmé thought about the singular focus that had nearly peeled away her carefully cultivated shields. “No, they really can’t.”

The next morning, Vader watched with fascination as Padmé was covered in the layers of her _most_ traditional robe, with the most ornate headdress they could find carefully clipped to the braids of her hair, and the white and red face-paint applied with almost military precision. 

Padmé carefully added a streak of gold above and below each red beauty mark, with a gold dot in the center of the marks themselves, and nodded in satisfaction.

(Of course, then it was her and her sisters’ turn to watch in fascination as Vader became The Emperor’s Fist, even if the Darkness dripping from his shadow was enough to set their teeth on edge.)

The doors to the Council chamber slammed open with the most satisfying noise that Padmé had heard in awhile, opening on a table full of startled Councilors and Imperial officers alike. She swept in like a warship under full sublight, with Lord Vader two steps behind her and to her right, and her sisters spread out between and behind them like an honor guard of starfighters.

One of the Councilors opened his mouth to speak and Lord Vader fixed him with such a look that Padmé fancied she could smell urine under the musty smell of the incense drifting from the table.

“Gentlemen,” she said, ignoring the Imperial officers entirely. (She could see General Tarkin in the corner of her eye glaring at her enough to light her on fire if she hadn’t been who she was.) “I have made my decision.”

Governor Akadus rose shakily from the table. “You… have, your Highness?”

“Yes.” She pinned him with a gaze as cool as fresh snow-melt. “May I introduce to you my fiance, and _your_ future Prince Consort, Lord Vader, the Emperor’s Fist.”

The uproar that followed almost exceeded what Padmé had expected. There was, of course, the expected yelling from the Advisory Council, which Padmé regally ignored until the yelling was at least of one opinion, instead of outraged harpy shrieks. What was unexpected was actually General Tarkin’s reaction.

As the Council quietly shouted itself into a tizzy over on one table, General Tarkin stood up, glaring at Vader all the while. 

“You have gone too far this time, Lord Vader,” he said, his eyes burning. “When the Emperor hears about this, your pretty little pet over there will die _screaming_.”

Padmé didn’t even see Vader move, but Tarkin was suddenly choking on nothing, his body rising into the air until his feet dangled – and there was a lot of him to dangle – until with one final gasp, he was thrown into the far wall with a _crunch_ that rendered the rest of the room silent.

“Captain Niema,” Vader asked a nearby Imperial officer in what Padmé was privately referring to as his ‘Emperor’s Fist’ voice, “do you have anything to add to General Tarkin’s suggestion?”

Captain Niema shook his head.

“Good,” Vader rumbled.

“Your Highness,” Governor Akadus rose, determinedly not looking at Lord Vader. “I think…” He swallowed. “I think you may find that Lord Vader is not– is not suitable for your Prince Consort. A-according to the law,” he finished weakly.

Padmé just looked at him, waiting until his eyes flicked over the additional markings to her face-paint and he realized just what _exactly_ they meant, which he obliged by turning even paler, somehow. 

“I think, Governor,” she said, softly as a mourning dove, “that you may find that Lord Vader is _eminently_ suitable for the position of Prince Consort. If the Council would care to look _again_ at the law, I’m sure they will find everything is in order.”

It was three days before they were wed, which was the shortest time tradition allowed _and_ was only allowable because Padmé’s wedding dress was also her coronation gown and had thus been finished for months beforehand. Lord Vader refused any clothing that was not already his own – much to the consternation of the Advisory Council – but when he finally came to Padmé at the altar, dressed in his usual shadows against Padmé’s purple and gold splendor, she had to hide a smile at just how striking he looked.

The coronation took up most of the ceremony, being much more complicated than a wedding, which was just two people agreeing to support and cherish each other for the rest of their days. Padmé was tempted to throw in a line about love, but while she was reasonably certain of the direction her heart was headed in, she was less so about Lord Vader’s.

Still, the ceremony took most of the morning on the third day, was held inside the throne room instead of on the steps of the palace, and the best part of all was the shuffling reluctance of the Advisory Council as they passed in front of Padmé’s throne and handed over their chains and medallions of state.

The rest of the day was spent in minutiae, as Padmé and her sisters removed even the last vestiges of the Advisory Council’s influence from the Palace. Entire wings were opened to them, their halls elegant but utilitarian, so unlike the ornate hallways of the Royal wing, and dedicated entirely to the business of running a planet. If Padmé had been anyone else, or indeed, if she had no sisters at all to set about inserting themselves into the government with a joyous will, then the amount of reports and introductions might have made her head spin. But she had been a Princess of Theed, they all had, and she stepped into her role as she had been trained to, while her sisters stepped into theirs.

Throughout it all, Lord Vader stood at her right hand, shrouded in darkness and fury. He left her side only once, immediately after her coronation, but returned quickly with an already signed treaty that ratified Naboo’s status as an independent client-state of the Empire. (And if anyone noticed that the late General Tarkin’s signature was the first and largest in the signatory area, then no one mentioned it.)

By dinner the Imperial troops had retreated en masse to the Star Destroyers, which still lingered just over Theed, leaving behind only Captain Niema and a few other Imperial officers to hover awkwardly to the side of the royal court. They bowed deeply to her when Padmé called them forward, but she noticed that for all their obsequiousness, their gaze more often focused on Lord Vader, where he stood stoically in the place the Prince Consort’s chair normally rested. _She_ could feel his unease at the attention, even under the fluttering undercurrents of fear that wiggled from everyone in the throne room, save for her sisters; but she doubted anyone else could.

As soon as the last vestiges of sunset had faded from the highest tower of the Palace – the Queen’s Apartments – Padmé rose and retreated to her rooms, while Lord Vader followed like an encroaching specter of death. But when she reached her rooms – several levels down from the top, for security reasons – and turned around, Lord Vader had pulled back his hood and set aside the shadows, leaving only a young man with golden-amber hair, scarred before his time.

There was fear between them, she realized, though it wasn’t hers. Fear of loss, of revulsion, and of disgust rose around them like a sandstorm, leaving the corners of her mind gritty and uncertain.

“You don’t have to do this,” Vader told her, his blue eyes at once emotionless and sad.

“You’re right.” Padmé nodded. “I don’t.”

Her sisters had left a teapot sitting on a tray with a few of Padmé’s favorite cakes, and when she tested it, the tea was still warm. So she took the cups – plain, serviceable china instead of the ornate tea sets meant for a Queen – and poured the tea, mixing in the careful amounts of sugar that would turn the tea from bitter to smooth, before handing one to her husband.

“I don’t have to do this,” she told him. “I didn’t have to marry you. And now that I’m Queen and you’ve provided me with the treaty that will protect my planet, I am perfectly within my rights to retire you peacefully to the Lake Country like so many other Prince Consorts have been.” Her lips twitched into a smile, hidden by her teacup. “In fact, it’s almost tradition to do so.”

The first gritty dregs of the tea touched her lips and she set aside her teacup, noting quietly that Vader had his clutched in the fingers of his non-prosthetic hand, as if he were trying to keep them warm.

“However,” she continued, the words coming to her with the ring of truth that only the Force could give. “I did not marry you just to become Queen, or even just to gain clemency for my people.” She met his eyes then, and let him _feel_ her sincerity. “I married you because for all your fury and darkness, for all that you would kill without mercy or remorse, should you feel the need, you are also kind.”

He blinked then, his teacup shaking in his grip.

“You are kind, Lord Vader. And you deserve freedom as much as my sisters and I do.”

The teacup stilled.

“Anakin,” Lord Vader said. “My name is Anakin. Vader is just what the _Master_ calls me.” He spat the word “master” with as much vitriol as he did Tarkin’s name.

Padmé smiled. “Anakin.” Her fingers went to her coronation headdress and unclasped it from her braids (thankfully it was one of the only headdresses she _could_ do that to). “My life may have been given in service of my people since I was ten years old, but what I remember of my parents is that they loved each other very much.”

She set the headdress aside on one of the side tables, yanking the pins that kept her braids in position as she went. “You and I may have met in less than desirable circumstances, but I hope…” She looked up at him, into his unfathomable expression. “I hope we can at least be partners and… and friends, if nothing else.”

He ran a hand over his face, his durasteel fingers glinting in the candlelight, and looked heartachingly tired and sad, just for a moment, before he smiled with the faintest sliver of hope peeking out of his eyes. “I’d like that.”

His gaze caught on her fingers as she undid the last few ties of the overdress and he flushed almost as red as her face-paint. “I, ah, your Highness… I mean, your Majesty, I–”

Padmé tossed the overdress onto a nearby chair – ignoring the imaginary shrieks of Yané as the precious and ancient silk crumpled to the floor – and grinned at him. “Padmé,” she said. “When we’re in private at least. Though you’re allowed to call me ‘my lady’ in public if you want to scandalize the court.”

He flushed harder. “You’re a beautiful woman, lady– uh, my la– _Padmé_. But I–”

She tilted her head, feeling the slow swirl of embarrassment and fear that tiptoed around the edges of the room. “You’d rather sit and talk until we’re more comfortable with each other and with this marriage?”

He blinked.

“Good,” Padmé said, and clambered on the bed, taking care to keep her – perfectly opaque, thank you – shifts from getting caught under her knees. She curled into her habitual place against the covers – just to the right of center – and smiled at him. “Everything after the coronation, in regards to our private life, at this point is just a formality. The frankly _ridiculous_ law that requires me to be married to a Force-sensitive male in order to provide Force-sensitive progeny doesn’t actually require that I have progeny at all, since there’s no guarantee of them becoming queen anyways.”

She patted the bed beside her. “Besides, my handmaidens will keep the worst of the gossips away. They approve of you.”

“They… do?” he whispered faintly, but started stripping down into just a shirt and light pants before gingerly climbing into the bed. He seemed surprised when his hands and knees sank about ten centimeters, but he managed to make it to the place she indicated without falling, and he curled into a careful approximation of her posture before grimacing and stretching out his long legs to the foot of the bed.

Padmé spared a half-moment to admire the play of muscles underneath the skin of his legs – bare from the knee down – though she was careful to keep it to herself. Her husband’s strength in the Force was present even now, and felt almost like rolling in a hot spring – relaxing in the way that only hot water on sore muscles could manage, but with the knowledge that at any moment the water could turn scalding.

“–child?”

She twitched and looked up at him. “I’m sorry?”

Anakin studied her face, and if she hadn’t been staring at him, she probably would have missed the faint twitch of a smirk that was there and gone in an instant. “What kind of law requires you to have a Force-sensitive child?”

She wrinkled her nose. “An archaic one. Probably devised by power-hungry bureaucrats.”

Anakin laughed, then looked surprised at the sound. But his amusement curled around her like one of the tusk cats that Padmé had seen once from one of the high windows in the Royal wing, frolicing in the gardens below. She had a stable of them, she knew, but had never even been allowed to see one up close. 

It was a matter of a moment to slide sideways on the pillow until her head was pillowed on his shoulder, but despite his jump of surprise, Anakin was quick to pull her close, his hands gentle over her shoulders and stomach. They lay like that, talking quietly, until the candles burned low and the last hint of moonlight faded from the curtains. Then they curled together under the mass of blankets and slept until well past noon, where they were woken by Sabé’s amused grin, a lunch tray, and the reports from the rest of her handmaidens about the business of monarchy.

_She glows differently now, and Hades doesn’t just look at her in friendship, but also in awe. He asks her if she is sure only once, and when she nods so decisively that the flowers in the little garden he gave her rattle their blooms in response, he only places his hand on her cheek and smiles brighter than she’s ever seen._

_It doesn’t take long for her father-king to arrive, he could hardly let her challenge go unanswered. But his anger is about what she expects, even if he tries to hide it in kindness first._

_“Koré,” he says, “Why have you come here, to the land of the dead? Surely there are better gardens out under the sun? I hate to see you so wilted, daughter-mine.”_

_She is_ not _wilted. She has sunk roots and gained the tough bark of a tree reaching into its full growth. The gardens in her mother’s world and in Hades’ that answer to her call and tremble at her fury are proof enough of that. But she keeps her face still and stern, and does not answer her father’s pointed remarks._

_“Koré,” he tries again. “Your mother misses you. She has found someone for you, someone who will love you and cherish you, and give you all the things that you need to survive.”_

_But Koré has tasted of things under the sun, and they of her, and so long as the land under the sun remains in her mother’s care, then Koré will be in her mother’s shadow, pale and delicate and sheltered. And utterly without roots._

_She tells her father this, and tells him that Hades casts no shadow over her, but instead shows her how to cast her own instead. She glows with love and fury both as she says this, and her light casts shadows on her father’s face, shadows that twist and snarl and grow jagged as thunderbolts gather at his fingertips._

_Hades places his hand at the small of her back, a small, quiet warning._

_Zeus turns to Hades then, a storm in his gaze, but Hades is quiet and implacable as stone, save for the sudden rush of power that Koré can feel in his fingertips as he opens the Underworld to her._

_Zeus, even in his rage, can feel that Hades has done something, but his gaze does not yet turn towards his daughter. Instead he raises one lightninged fist and lets his magic fly…_

_Only to stagger as Koré_ pushes _against him, her magic – from both above and below – twining about his feet like her mother’s ivy. The thunderbolt misses, striking instead at an outcropping of rock just to the right of where Hades stands, frowning slightly in concentration._

 _Koré strikes again, before her father can, and_ pulls _hard on her magic to do it. Far above, her mother startles and falters, but Koré keeps pulling anyways, reaching for her birthright._

_There is a moment of astonished stillness, and then she has it, given freely from her mother’s magic to her. She shoves her roots deep, deep, deep into both worlds, glowing as fierce as a star, and takes three steps forward until she can look her father in his stormy eyes._

_Her open connection to the Underworld fades with Hades’ touch, but her roots are_ there _now, so it is not gone entirely, and she pulls on it as she speaks._

 _“I have found someone who loves and cherishes me. Someone who gives me all the things I need to_ thrive _.”_

_Zeus pushes his power against hers, but she’s rooted now, and strong as one of her mother’s oaks, her willows, and her olive trees. She glows brighter in response, until even her father-king must shade his eyes and look away._

_Hades never does._

_“This was never your choice, Zeus, always mine.” she says. “My power is not a product for trade and never will be.”_

_“You are my daughter–” he grates out._

_“I am myself,” she tells him. “And my name is Persephone.”_

Within a day, the Imperial troops had retreated back to their ships, which remained in position above Theed and the other cities. It was all ‘The Emperor’s Fist’ could do, even with the death of General Tarkin and the signing of the client-state treaty, which wouldn’t be ratified until it was sent back to the Emperor on Coruscant.

Anakin’s face was twisted in sour anger as he told her this, but Padmé only placed a slim hand on his shoulder and thanked him for doing what he could. (And if either of them noticed how he’d straightened his shoulders as if relaxing from an expected blow that never came, then neither of them mentioned it.)

They had one week of marriage – of quiet nights spent talking by candlelight while Padmé tried not to stare at her husband shirtless – before the Emperor’s flagship burst into view over Theed with a resounding crash that shattered half the windows in the city.

The Imperial troops emerged from their ships then, and marched again down the main road towards the palace, though thankfully there were no civilians – or children – to watch. 

This time, Anakin stood by her side on the steps of the palace, his cloak of Darkness wrapped as tightly around him as a pressure bandage until even Padmé couldn’t tell his emotions other than the pervasive, insidious twist of fear. 

Hidden by her sleeves, and his, Padmé carefully reached out a single finger to trace his palm, only to nearly startle as he grabbed her entire hand in an almost vise-like grip. 

Then the troops marched close enough to the palace that Padmé could see a hooded and cloaked figure seated in a hover-chair at the very front, and she began to realize exactly why Anakin was so afraid. Creeping in front of the Imperial host – in front of the Emperor, for that’s who that was – was a feeling so foul, so loathsome, that Naboo itself seemed to shy away from it. It moved like a fast-growing rot, wriggling between the cobblestones and up against the buildings until Padmé fancied she could see it like a huge stain of brackish water, seeping along the boulevard.

Then it really hit, and Padmé thought she’d seen Darkness, but this was an _abyss_ , a hole in the fabric of the universe and it was pulling her down with it– 

Anakin’s fingers tightened on hers until her bones ground together and she fell back to herself with a gasp. Even his Darkness, that had turned her stomach when he’d put it on that morning, seemed as fresh as a cool spring breeze now, and she resisted the urge to huddle behind it, to take shelter in the gold-red eyes of Lord Vader because surely even the Emperor’s Fist was better than the Emperor himself.

There was an honor guard following the Emperor, twelve figures hooded and cloaked in much the same way Anakin had been – was still – as Lord Vader. They barely registered to Padmé’s senses, seemingly subsumed by the Emperor’s darkness. But Anakin relaxed minutely when he saw them, and the crushing grip he had on her hand lightened to merely a firm tether, keeping her from being swept in by the undertow.

The troops came right up to the Palace, farther than Anakin had taken them when he’d arrived, and Padmé had to push down the gibbering terror in the back of her mind. The civilians had been evacuated from the city center by the first day, and shuttled into the swamps surrounding the city by the third and fourth. They would be _fine_ and–

“So this is the puling whore that so beguiled you, Lord Vader,” the Emperor sneered, his fury beating against Padmé’s mind like molten glass shards. He rose from his hover-chair, looking surprisingly shriveled for the ruler of the known universe, and began a slow ascent up the stairs. “Did she promise you a planet, my apprentice? I promised you the _galaxy_.”

“Emperor Palpatine,” Padmé began, her throat dry. Her skin crawled with every second in his presence, and she could see her handmaidens fighting to stay upright, but for Naboo’s survival, she had to try _something_. “Naboo is–”

The Emperor’s hand reached out, like claws, and Padmé had an instant of shock before her airway closed under a crushing grip that _wasn’t there_. Another moment, and she could breathe again. So she did, gasping like an asthmatic bellows. 

Anakin was holding a glowing sword – a lightsaber, a half forgotten history lesson offered – that was as burnished gold as his eyes. It sizzled in his grasp, though she realized that the burning smell was actually from the stump of the Emperor’s right wrist, and the small, curled claw of a hand that had landed on the marble steps before her.

“ _You don’t get to touch her_ ,” Anakin snarled, and the Emperor laughed.

“So then, boy. Treason, is it? Do you really think you’ll get away with your life, or even that of your pretty, little wife’s? After what you’ve done, you–”

At some unseen signal, all the Imperial troops snapped their rifles to their shoulders, a move that rattled weapons against plastoid alloy like bones clacking together. Except the rifles weren’t pointed at the houses like Padmé had halfway feared. They were pointed instead at the small gaggle of Imperial officers who were loitering at the foot of the steps. Behind the officers, the honor guard drew their own lightsabers, igniting them in a blaze of white and gold, with a single purple blade in the hands of the leader.

“Yes,” Anakin said. “I think I will.”

He brought his lightsaber down in a motion that would have cleaved the Emperor in two if the dark lord hadn’t reached upwards with his un-injured hand, and stopped the glowing blade with a web of black lightning between his fingers. Anakin shoved himself forward then, the Emperor leapt back, and the fight began in earnest.

The officers were handled quickly, dying under a hail of blasterfire as the troopers focused their sights on them first. Distant shouts and flashes signaled other officers being handled in much the same way. 

Anakin propelled the Emperor towards his honor guard, his golden saber flashing against the Emperor’s, which was red as fire, red as blood. But the honor guard did not move to protect their Emperor, instead they harried him, darting in from the sides while Anakin pressed at the front, until the Emperor was ringed in a wheel of white and gold (and purple) light.

Sabé’s hand was on Padmé’s shoulder, trying to pull her back into the Palace, to safety, but she stood her ground, her eyes fixed on the duelists. The Emperor was canny, but outnumbered, and Anakin was agile and focused, but his rage over-extended his blows and left openings that Padmé could _feel_ in the Force – little flashes of vulnerability that brought her heart to her throat. But the Emperor did not take them, with the honor guard there to press him whenever Anakin left an opening, and though his movements were crisp and measured with experience, Padmé could feel the growing rage as the Emperor was forced back step by step.

Then the Darkness swelled, the Force _writhing_ , and Padmé was driven to her knees as the Emperor reached out in the Force, grasping at anything and anyone until he managed to reach Naboo itself. 

The planet screamed, and Padmé screamed with it, her mind dragged into the shadows. She had an instant of seeing Anakin turn towards the noise, of her handmaidens collapsing next to her, before the Darkness settled on the planet like a swollen tick, looking for more to gorge itself on.

Fury erupted within her then, incandescent and blazing, and Padmé reached into the Force and into the planet, her mind reaching farther than the Emperor ever could, until she reached the ignited heart of her planet. Her Handmaidens showed her the way out, standing with her in the Force just like they’d practiced. Then she rose, shining in righteous fury, her sisters’ anger a bolstering presence against her mind.

The Emperor had barely a moment to glance astonished in her direction before she severed his hold on the planet as neatly as her husband had removed his hand. Then the backlash hit, scattering troopers and honor guard and Handmaidens like leaves in a summer windstorm. By the time everyone was standing again, the Emperor had vanished, leaving behind only a tattered black cloak and a smear of foul ash on the paving stones.

After she regained her feet, the Emperor’s honor guard met Padmé at the foot of the stairs, removing their hoods to reveal a rough half-dozen humans, and a few others from races that Padmé had only ever heard about.

One of them approached her, his brown hair disheveled and his formerly neat beard singed along the edges. “Your Majesty, my name is Obi-wan Kenobi,” he said. “On behalf of the Jedi Order, and of my friend,” here he glanced back at Anakin, “we would like to thank you for, ah… _disposing_ of the Emperor so neatly. We had remembered histories of the Force-Queens of Naboo and had been worried about your survival.” He smiled. “I am glad to see that you turned out unharmed.”

Padmé raised an eyebrow as sternly as she was able with her knees still shaking. She'd heard of the Jedi, though she'd thought, as had the rest of the galaxy, that they'd gone extinct. “Then I'm glad our goals were aligned then, Master Kenobi. Do you think you can get these troops off my planet?”

Kenobi bowed and went back to what had to be the other Jedi Masters to confer. 

Cautiously, Anakin approached. “Are you okay?” He seemed hesitant, wariness coiled in the line of his shoulders. “That was… that was a lot of Force use.”

Padmé eyed him, then held out her hand, ignoring the studiously distracted chatter of her sisters who were slowly gravitating together between them and the Jedi Masters. Anakin’s fingers twitched in hesitation, but he reached out anyways, holding her hand like she'd turned to porcelain. 

With their hands clasped palm-to-palm, she stepped forward until their breaths mingled, then she let her shields fall. Anakin blazed like an eclipse to her senses, but gradually the eclipse cleared until there was only light and heat. 

Judging by the look of awe on his face, she shone just as brightly. 

His other hand came up to brush aside a lock of hair, faltering over her cheek before he carefully muted his expression and stepped back.

“Your planet is free, my la– your Majesty,” he said, clamping down on his emotions tight enough to wring a soft exhalation from Padmé’s chest. “I’ll make sure of it.”

 _Thank the ancestors for my training_ , she thought, willing away the heartache that threatened to bowl her over. “You’re… leaving then?” She couldn’t make herself call him by his title.

Anakin’s shoulders twitched in the barest shrug. “You’re a very good Queen, your Majesty. I doubt you need me anymore.”

If he hadn’t looked as miserable as she felt… “Need you? No,” she said. “I don’t need you here.” She ignored the flinch she felt in the Force and in the fingers of his right hand, which hadn’t let go of hers, despite his words. “Want you? Yes.”

His gaze snapped to hers, hope warring with fear – of loss, she realized, he was afraid of loss – and his hand tightened on hers. “You… want me to stay.”

“I made my choice when I married you, when you told me your name and talked about your mother until I felt I knew her better than my own.” Her shrug was carefully nonchalant. “To be honest, I made my choice when I snuck into your rooms on that Star Destroyer.” She grabbed at his other hand, pressing them both to the brocaded panels on her stomach. “I would have you stay, if that’s what you want.”

There was a sudden outpouring of conversation behind him – her sisters intercepting the Jedi Masters – but Anakin seemed to hear none of it. His face crinkled in a beaming smile that wiped all trace of gold from his blue, blue eyes. “Anywhere you want me to go, my lady. I’ll be there.”

So she reached up and brought his lips to hers, sliding her fingers into his hair – which was surprisingly silky for how tangled it looked. Anakin’s shields fell at the first press of her mouth, buffeting her in waves of joy, relief, _love_. He cupped her face in his hands and pressed closer, the tips of his fingers snagging on her braids, dislodging a hair pin, stroking along the edge of her jaw just under her ear with – _ancestors_ – with such _intent_ that nearly crackled against her senses–

“ _Anakin_ ,” Master Kenobi said, his tone vaguely scolding as though chastisement was the only way he could hold the laughter in. “Might I suggest you maul the Queen in private?”

Anakin’s head dropped all the way to her shoulder, but she could feel his smile against her neck. “She’s my wife, old man. I think I’m allowed.”

Kenobi’s eyes twinkled. “Congratulations. You have my permission to continue _later_. Her Majesty needs to be Queen now.”

Anakin’s head shot up. “ _Permission?_ I don’t need your–” He scowled at Kenobi’s poorly concealed smile. “Fine.” He moved away, but Padmé’s firm grip on his hand pulled him back before he could get too far. Sabé moved in to fix her face-paint and Eirtaé handed Anakin a wipe to clear the face-paint off _his_ face – though it did nothing for his smile. 

They stepped to the edge of the top step together, and Padmé settled into the business of ruling, unable to hide a smile at the feeling of her husband by her side.

_Koré she was. Persephone she is now, and Hades loves her for it. Her mother visits when she can, after Persephone shows her the benefits of death and rebirth on both plants and the earth. When she comes, Persephone shows her the flowers of the Underworld, and is treated with much the same joy that she felt the first time she saw them._

_To say she has no difficulties is to be unkind. If her husband has taught her anything, it is that difficulties are what makes goodness sweeter. So let us not say that they lived ‘happily ever after.’_

_Let us instead say that they lived, and loved, for every minute they could._

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me at my tumblr: [starbirdrampant](https://starbirdrampant.tumblr.com)


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